March 31- cont.
Since Justin seems to be coming up empty, Karen climbs up to the roof to take a look too. Justin starts taking a closer look at the debris on the flat roof, hoping to find some clues. Most of this stuff looks like the typical refuse of the area: fast-food wrappers, booze bottles, etc. One thing that Justin does notice is that this stuff is all sort of shoved off to the sides. Like somebody wanted to clear the center of the roof for some reason.

Kat calls up, asking if Justin and Karen can see the patterns that are painted on the roof. They have no idea what she is talking about. She was able to get access into a site with down-looking satellites and found pictures for this area. The most recent picture shows a symbol that covers most of the roof, done in broad strokes with brown paint.

Even knowing what to look for, it takes Justin and Karen some hard searching to spot the patterns. The brush strokes look to have been done with a large mop. Karen starts taking notes, doing the roof as a grid, noting endpoints of the lines. Justin goes down to his truck and comes back up with his digital camera and a fresh memory stick and batteries. He starts taking pictures with Karen directing and standing in frame to show scale.

Justin uses his knife and some little manila envelopes Karen brought along to collect samples of the paint for analysis later. Seems like poster paint; thick dried out now and flakey. It looks like it would wash away with water. Last time it rained was the 19th and on the 26th it snowed. The paint shows no signs of water. This combined with Kat’s satellite photos give a definite time frame to look into. Kat says she can clean up the satellite pictures to show the symbols better, but it will take some time and she can’t do it here. She also says that a satellite picture from a week earlier does not show the symbols.

While Justin and Karen continue taking pictures and searching for any clues on the roof, Kat calls up that there are really nasty looking thunder clouds rolling in. Looking around, they see that a storm is forming quickly. They agree that being the highest point on a flat roof during a thunderstorm isn’t a healthy place to be and head for the ladder.

As soon as they get down, Justin pulls the memory stick out of the digital camera and puts it in his pocket, separate from the camera, thinking that it’s less likely for it to get messed up if it’s not hooked up to a device. (He could be wrong. Electronics aren’t really his thing. But it makes sense.)

The clouds start pouring down rain just as Kat gets her computer packed away. Everybody is just starting toward Justin’s truck to leave when they hear shuffling come from inside the warehouse. They move a bit quicker and, as they get to the truck and look back they see that the white material spread across the doorway is washing away in rivulets. As they are getting into the truck and Justin gets it started they see that the large door is beginning to slide open.

[kraka – BOOM]

Lightning strikes maybe 15 feet to one side of the truck. Everybody is pretty much blind and deaf for about 30 seconds. The truck is still running and Justin flips on the lights. The angle is wrong and they can’t see anything but darkness inside the warehouse. Justin gets out his handheld spotlight and is about to plug it into the cigarette lighter when,

[KRAKA – BOOM!!!!]

another lightning bolt hits 15 feet to the other side of the truck. Justin tosses the spotlight back in the truck, slams the door, saying “God says, we gotta go,” as he puts it in gear and gets the heck out of there.

Everybody is wet to one degree or another so they agree to stop at a place for some hot coffee. Kat copies the memory stick from Justin’s camera. It looks like the close lightning strike didn’t mess it up any. She says she can clean up the pictures but the programs are on her home computer and it will take some time. While she’s at it, Kat burns a CD-ROM real quick. (Justin starts to realize how much Kat has packed into that laptop and how much it must have cost. His home computer couldn’t have burned a CD that fast and it’s pretty good.) She also stashes a copy of the data somewhere out in cyberspace.

Justin realizes that his phone was off this whole time and turns it on. There are four calls back logged on the phone; all from Jerry at the garage. Jerry gets more anxious in each one, asking where Justin is and when he’ll be back to work on the cars that are waiting. Justin calls in and calms Jerry down. He also points out that at least one of the guys getting antsy doesn’t even have an appointment to have his car worked on til tomorrow anyway. (“Friday means Friday, Jerry. Not Thursday. I don’t care if he DOES play for the Lions, he doesn’t get to jump ahead in line. Now, maybe if they could win a game… No, no. I don’t want you to tell him that. I’ll call him. G’bye Jerry.”)

Kat gets a cab home and Justin offers to drive Karen back to her place near campus on his way back to the garage. Kat will get started on enhancing the photos, Justin will try to get ahead on some jobs at the garage and Karen says she’ll call Father Andrew to fill him in on what they’ve found out so far.

On the way to Karen’s place, Justin barely has time to hit the brakes when he sees a ball bounce into the street, followed closely by a little black girl chasing it. The truck fishtails to a stop, just barely missing the kid. He jumps out to check, only to find no sign of the little girl. Justin quickly becomes convinced that he must have run over the girl and is desperately searching for the body when Karen gets out of the truck to ask what is wrong. Justin is starting to get really freaked out when they find the girl’s blue rubber ball against the inside edge of a front tire.
Karen recognizes the ball, stashes it in her backpack and asks Justin to describe the child he saw. She sees that he is describing Jane and tells Justin of her encounter with the little ghost girl from the diner. “Welcome to my world. I’ve been seeing ghosts since I was a kid.” It takes a few minutes to reassure him that this was an encounter with a ghost and to calm him down. Justin says he’ll try to help Karen find out what happened to Jane’s momma as long as Jane doesn’t scare him into another heart attack like that. Both soaked to the bone now, they finish the drive to Karen’s place without further incident.

Kat gets home to find Jared isn’t home yet. He’s left a message on the machine, saying that he has to entertain the suits, he’s sorry, and he’ll be home as soon as he can manage it. Kat starts working on analyzing and enhancing the photos from the warehouse roof. Her new kitten is making its presence known by climbing up her legs (“Those hose are purple silk, feline. Snag them and I’ll make you eat ‘em.” Funny how those little claws very carefully retract.) to the back of her chair. The kitten nuzzles her and basically begs for attention while she works.

Kat tracks down a near match for the symbol. It looks like it is some kind of veyvey symbol from voodoo. She realizes she has worked straight thru dinner til almost midnight. She’s somewhat annoyed that Jared isn’t home yet, she put that lingerie on for good reason after all. She calls Jared’s cellphone but the call goes straight to voice mail. Which most likely means he is still shepherding around their “important visitors” from D.C. and it’s not totally his fault.

Everybody except Jerry has already gone home by the time Justin gets to the garage. Jerry offers what’s left of the pizza he got for dinner and then sees that Justin looks like he’s in shock or something and makes him sit down and drink some hot coffee. When Jerry asks what happened, Justin tells him he almost hit a kid in the rain and leaves it at that.

Jerry tries to get Justin to go home but Justin says that working helps him calm down. Sort of a Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance thing, ya might say. Jerry sticks around to help get the first car done fast. Justin is just getting into his stride by the time Jerry leaves. He finishes on the second car, both were simple installation jobs, and gets started on the third that is more involved. He gets interrupted about midnight by a call from Karen.

Karen calls Father Andrew shortly after she gets into her apartment. He says he can get to her place shortly because he wants to hear this in person. She has tea brewing when she hears his knock on the door. She fills him in on what was found at the warehouse, including showing him the digital photos on her computer (Kat ran her a copy as well.) and the paint samples in the envelope.

Fr. Andrew recognizes the symbol as something like a dumbahla voodoo symbol called a veyvey, except that this one is different. It looks like it was modified for some reason, but he can’t recognize what the mod means. He says this looks like really powerful magic and that makes him think that Karen’s team may be out of their depth. He seriously wants them to take a step back from this. He asks that they check the information aspects of the case rather than physically investigating the warehouse anymore. At least for now.

He is thinking that another, more experienced team might have to be brought in on this. Unfortunately, Fr. Andrew says he is being distracted by the Pope’s failing health. If and when the Holy Father passes, and it seems it could be any time now, Fr. Andrew will have to return to Rome. He says he has already made arrangements with a new contact for them if he has to leave.

The paint from the symbols is quickly identified as blood and flour by the simple expedient of Fr. Andrew touching it to his tongue. He points out that painting symbols that big over that large of an area would take an awful lot of blood, gathered over a fairly short time. It would be a good idea to check on places where that much blood could be attained in the area. Something like a slaughter yard, butcher shops, blood bank disposal, lots of missing animals, that kind of thing. He suggests that they look for anybody new to the area.

Father Andrew says the lightning strikes could have been done by a powerful Bokor voodoo priest. It is very likely that the reason they didn’t hit was because the Bokor was aiming through a zombie minion, which would have greatly decreased his accuracy. Again, he says, this indicates that this is a very powerful practitioner. Even among those who know of real voodoo and The Art, this is an almost unheard of ability.

Karen finishes up by telling Fr. Andrew about the almost accident with Justin’s truck and Jane’s ghost. He’s very intrigued to see the manifested rubber ball that Karen removes from her pack. He also finds it interesting that Justin was able to see the ghost, if only momentarily. Karen tells Fr. Andrew about her first encounter with Jane and her promise to help find out what happened to her momma. Fr. Andrew’s response is an aghast, “You did what?” He warns that making a promise to a ghost can be… bad for you. Ghosts have no real sense of time and what may seem like a reasonable delay for research to a person could seem to a ghost that the person is taking forever and ignoring their promise. He half laughingly comments, “Well, at least you didn’t feed it.” He gulps when he sees the look on Karen’s face, and her admission that she did indeed feed Jane seems to make him genuinely scared for her.
Father Andrew explains that feeding a ghost can create a sort of a bridge to give the spirit some purchase in the real world. He says several prayers with Karen, blesses her and gives her his own personal crucifix. Karen isn’t sure but she thinks Fr. Andrew’s hands may have actually been glowing slightly while he was saying the blessings. He recommends that Karen have company as much as possible. The ghost may not think she is pursuing her case as rapidly as it would like and she shouldn’t be alone. After Fr. Andrew leaves, Karen makes a three way call to fill in Kat and Justin.

Kat had dozed off at the keyboard, waking up shortly after midnight as Jared is carrying her up to bed. He fills her in on the somewhat awful evening he had with the D.C. suits.

Taking them out for dinner was pretty much expected. Jared’s superior, Wilkins, trying to brag about how on top of everything they were was not expected, nor wanted. The idiot never reads the action reports so he is woefully behind the curve of what was actually going on. It was terribly obvious and Jared couldn’t even cover for him because Wilkins just kept going on and on, digging a deeper and deeper hole.
The suits decided they wanted to hit some of the bars with good music. This unfortunately resulted in himself and his suit absolutely REEKING of cigarette smoke and he must take a shower. While he is undressing, Jared continues. He says the bar crawl wouldn’t have been so bad except that Wilkins tagged along, still prattling on. Jared tried to salvage the evening by tipping the waiters to make sure Wilkins was getting double power drinks. They poured him into a cab after the second bar. Jared hopes he was able to do enough damage control during the rest of the evening. He suspects that someone may lose their job over Wilkins’ jabbering and what could be perceived as Jared slipping his superior a Mickey. He’s just not sure who’s.

Karen’s phone call goes through just about the same time Jared steps into the shower and Justin is buttoning up the last things on the car he needed to have done for Friday. Karen brings them up to speed on what Father Andrew was able to tell from what they found at the warehouse. Kat says at least part of that jibes with what she found out about the symbol from her own research. They agree that they need to look for new arrivals in the area; check for missing person reports and see where a large amount of blood could be obtained in the area. For starters.

When Karen relates that Fr. Andrew felt that she shouldn’t be alone, Justin asked if her couch was comfortable. She says it’s kind of small. Justin says he’s got camping gear and he’s okay with sleeping on her floor if she is willing. He doesn’t want her to be alone if Father Andrew says she shouldn’t. Says he just needs to finish up a few things put his tools away and he’ll be to her place. Karen thanks Justin and says she’ll wait up for him.

... filling in some of the gaps ...

Kat rushed home (condo in downtown Detroit) so that she'd be there when Jarod arrived (having made various salacious promises involving pretty but uncomfortable underthings). He left a message on the machine saying he was held up with the DC VIPs and would be home as soon as he could.

At least the orange tabby was there, and quite content to be fed and paid attention to.

Kat did some more research on the computer, falling asleep at the keyboard.

Jarod finally arrived around midnight, grumbling that the VIPs had wanted to take in some of the music clubs in the Cass Corridor, and that Wilkins (his boss) had been making a fool of himself. Jared tipped the bartender extra to give wilkins doubles, and managed to pour him into a cab before any irreversible damage was done. Unfortunately that left Jarod as sole escort for the VIPs.

He and Kat were just starting to get comfy when her phone rang...

Justin hadn't seen much on the roof, so Karen went up to give it a quick look. In the meantime, Kat pulled out her laptop and began to look for aerial photos of the building and area. Justin and Karen started studying the debris on the roof and noticed that it appeared to have been deliberately swept out of the center of the roof, though not as cleanly as to indicate use of a broom.

Just as Justin and Karen were about to give up, Kat asked if they could see the design that the most recent photo showed. "Uh, what design?" was their only response. Justin and Karen proceeded to look carefully for what Kat described, and managed to find it--a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. The design looked like it had been painted with a mop and poster paint, large enough to cover the roof. Justin and Karen proceeded to map and photograph the details, including reference points on the drawings and Karen in the photos as a scale reference; and they took a sample of the "paint" for later analysis.

As they finished their work, Kat pointed out the gathering clouds--a storm was coming. Justin and Karen climbed down, as Kat packed up the laptop, and as the team turned to go to the truck, the skies opened up with a torrential downpour. They heard the sound of shuffling coming from inside the warehouse and saw that the rain was washing away the 'circle' scribed around the building, and hurried toward the truck. As they got in, they noticed the warehouse door opening slowly. As soon as they were out of the rain, they directed their flashlights toward the door.

Just then, lightning struck the ground about 15 feet from the truck and they were all blinded and deafened for what seemed minutes, though it was only about 30 seconds. When they recovered enough to act, Justin positioned the truck to direct its headlights at the door. But there was no sign of anyone there, and no sight of anyone... or anything... moving away from the now wide-open doorway. As the team continued to scan the area for movement, lightning struck again -- at the same distance, but on the opposite side of the truck. They were being warned, and decided to heed the warning, driving quickly away.

The team headed for a coffeehouse to dry off, warm up, and compare notes. Kat did a little more research, and found that the design--which Karen identified as a Voudon veve, or ritual symbol--had not been on the roof in the satellite photo taken the week before, though the rain/snow mix on the 19th could have washed any previous evidence of it away. At that, Justin's phone rang. It was Jerry. He'd been leaving messages for Justin all afternoon--there had been 4 appointments for the day and the customers were getting antsy for their work to be finished. Since Justin had work to do and Kat had a date with Jared, Karen offered to contact Fr. Andrew and report what they'd found. Kat headed home, and Justin offered to drop Karen at her apartment.

As Justin drove down the rain-slicked streets, he saw a child's ball bounce into the street and caught a glimpse of a small black girl running into the street after it. He slammed on the brakes, fishtailing the truck, threw it into park and flew out the door. Karen hadn't seen what happened, but when she calmed Justin down enough for coherent speech, he described the child and pointed out the blue ball near the front tire. Karen picked up the ball and said "Welcome to my world."

She explained to Justin that the girl was Jane, the ghost she'd met at the diner earlier in the day. Karen is sure that this was Jane's way of reminding her of her promise. She briefly laid out the story for Justin--how she'd seen ghosts all her life, had been approached by Jane while waiting at the diner, and had promised the child (because that's how she thought of Jane--not as a potentially dangerous part of the Unknown) to help find her Mama. Justin offered his help, and, still shaken, turned the truck toward Karen's place.

Once home, Karen called Fr. Andrew. He offered to come by to hear the team's report, and a little while later Karen heard his footsteps in the hall, just as an email delivered a copy of the aerial photo that Kat had by now cleaned up to make as distinct as possible, as well as the photos that Justin had taken.

While tea steeped, Karen began her report, showing Fr. Andrew the photos and sketches, and describing what the team had found. She presented the sample of the 'paint', and he sniffed and tasted it and said it was blood mixed with flour.

Fr. Andrew went quickly to a website where he found a veve similar to the one on the warehouse roof, and explained that it was the symbol of Dambala, but slightly different than the one in his reference. He explained about the differences between Voudon -- the religion -- and Voodoo -- the 'American movie' version, and said that some people (pointing to his indalo pin) believe that Voodoo is an Unknown perversion of Voudon.

Karen continued her report over tea and the cookies that Fr. Andrew brought, describing how the storm blew in as the team packed up, and how the lightning struck to either side of the truck, forcing them to leave. Fr. Andrew told her that he believed that whomever was behind the zombies in that warehouse (he called it a bokor) was obviously fairly powerful, perhaps more than an inexperienced team could handle. He was going to look into getting us help, or finding someone else to pick up at this point.

(In confidence, he also added that the health of the Holy Father was not good, and that he might have little warning before being called to Rome. But he said that he would try to arrange for a back-up contact to take over for him, should he be called away before the matter was dealt with.)

In the meantime, he said, the team should stay away from the warehouse, but continue doing research: painting the veve on the roof would have required a great deal of blood--we needed to find out where that came from. Look for reports of animal disappearances, large quantities of blood stolen from a slaughterhouse, and missing people--particularly the homeless. We should also look for people new to the area, someone who seemed the sort to attempt this sort of thing.

When Karen had described everything else, she made a passing comment about Justin's first encounter with Jane. At that, Fr. Andrew leaned forward and asked for details of how she met Jane. As she described promising to help find Jane's Mama, he asked "You didn't feed her, did you?"

When Karen said that she had offered Jane a spoonful of chili, he became alarmed. He explained that ghosts can become dangerous when promises made to them aren't kept, and that a ghost's 'timeline' for expecting fulfillment of the promise might be very different from a living person's. He added that feeding a ghost creates a connection, a bridge, between the person and the ghost which could lead the ghost to the person.

He asked permission to bless Karen, which she gave, and when he had blessed her, he also marked all the windows and door of the apartment using the same prayer--one which, though she was raised Catholic, Karen didn't recognize.

When he finished, he offered her the cross that hung around his own neck, and blessed her with a more common blessing. When he did this, a trick of the light made it seem almost like there had been a slight glow around his hands, and the blessing left Karen with the warm fuzzy feeling that one gets when blessed by a trusted cleric. Karen helped Fr. Andrew with his coat, and he left her with the warning that she might want to be alone as little as possible until he had time to deal with Jane. Somehow, the hallway seemed colder than when she'd gotten home.

When Fr. Andrew had gone, Karen called Kat and Justin, and told them all that Fr. Andrew had said. When she told them about Fr. Andrew's warning about Jane and not being alone, Justin offered to come over immediately--and Karen accepted. She began peering out the windows, watching for Justin's truck. She'd never encountered a malevolent ghost before, and was more shaken up by what Fr. Andrew said than she would admit to anyone. She just hoped Justin would get there soon....